


Sister Dark

by orphan_account



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fray
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melaka has companionship after all.  For Faithhopetricks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sister Dark

"Must be nice," the voice said.

Melaka Fray startled awake (or did she?). She was in a sunlit room, with bright creamy white wallpaper and stuffed animals on the dressers and the smell of blueberry scones drifting from downstairs. It was, in fact, the sort of room she might expect a little girl in the uppers to have, the sort of room Mel had never had for herself.

She looked up from her hands--same old hands, nimble-fingered like any good thief's--and at the woman standing across the bed. The woman had dark, rippling hair, dark eyes gone momentarily soft, and a cocky smile. "What's nice?" Mel said.

"Having a sister," the woman said. "Although not as nice as having a brother must have been. But then," she said, musingly, "I suppose I was sister-dark."

"Nice has nothing to do with it," Mel said. She walked around the bed, carefully staying out of the other woman's personal space--something told her that that casual ease was just a show, and she didn't want to be on the receiving end of a stranger's sharp reflexes--and to the window. Her fingers clutched the windowsill. She forced the window open; with Slayer strength, it was no difficulty.

Below her she saw all the cities of earth in fine array, Nineveh and Çatal Hüyük and Shanghai, Aksum and Byzantium and Haddyn, cities of brick and wood and earth, stone and steel and glass, cities where conquerers rode in the streets by day and vampires feasted by night. Cities where women had never been safe, for a thousand thousand reasons: married to men and mothers to men, owners not even of their own pride. Cities where Slayers had fought, nonetheless, because someone had to, someone had to hold back the night's armies.

Cities where Slayers had to be strong, even if their families betrayed them in a thousand thousand ways.

"You're one of them," Mel said, finally understanding. "But I thought Harth had the dreams--?"

"I'm sure he does," the woman said dismissively. "Bet it turns him on. I'm different, though. I've fought on the wrong side because I was so screwed up I didn't know which way was up. I've walked through hell inside a vampire's head. And I'm here now because, honey, it was me or B, and she's not your type."

"Thanks," Melaka said, a little dubious. "That's a lot of cities we've defended."

"It is, isn't it?" The other Slayer came to stand at Mel's side. "I'm from a place called Boston, bet it doesn't even exist your side of time--"

"Never heard of it," Mel admitted.

"Yeah, it figures. But people can always build more cities, if we just keep the monsters away, the ones with human faces and the ones without." The woman's voice became quiet. "Hey, I'm sorry about your brother. None of us thought the dice would come up snake eyes, you know what I mean?"

Strangely, although this shadow-Slayer's idiom was completely unfamiliar to Mel, she did.

"He's got the dreams," the Slayer said. "But always remember that we're on your side."

The sunlight slanted through her, now; the dream was fading, fading. "Wait," Melaka said. "Your name--"

The woman winked and mouthed something, but Melaka couldn't hear a word.

And then she woke up in her squat with its barren walls, but at least she wasn't alone, not in the ways that mattered.


End file.
